12.24.2012

A TeePee for the BeeCee (Boston Cook That Is)

Whew!

We did it.

We did a little teepee-putting-together-action (also known as B's Christmas present) just in time for Christmas (actually Christmas eve since we decided to celebrate our "little family of three" Christmas the night before Christmas since it'll be just us at home that night). We'll wake up Christmas morning with my parents, my brother and my nephew.

Long ago....back in July when Katie (whom I'm hugely mildy obsessed with) posted about her teepee that she made her little man I fell in love. I feel in love with the teepee for little kids idea. Then I started seeing lots of cool ones all over the internet and blog land. Originally we thought we would give it to him for his birthday in October but we never got our rears into gear to actually get it done.

So what's the next best celebration? Christmas, of course. Jer and I read some blogs and scoured pinterest for some pictures of diy teepee's and set out to make ours for our little man since it seemed pretty easy to do.

While shopping at Ikea (two times in one week, I know, lucky girl I tell ya) I found some black and white fabric. One with thick stripes and one with thin stripes. It was an immediate corporate decision.....we would be using that fabric on this teepee somehow some way. I had all kinds of thoughts and ideas running through my head.

So yesterday, we claimed that day as teepee day. We were to plan nothing other than putting this monster together and finished. We had not time for playing around. We got down to business once B went down for a nap.

This is how it went:

Pillowcases - I made my pillow cases with some leftover "Boston" fabric and some of the thin black and white striped fabric. The Boston pillow case was 20x20 since I already had a pillow insert in that size to go inside of it. I also made it by using the "pocket" method so that I could take the pillow case off to wash. The other (black and white striped) pillow cases were 16x16 (I got the pillow inserts at Ikea) and I ended up sewing those completely shut.....fingers crossed they stay clean. Wishful thinking, perhaps?

Jer got 6 8 foot 2x2's from Home Depot for our structural base. He arranged them so that the base of the teepee would be wide. I wanted it wide enough for B to put a blanket and lots of pillows and to be able to lay and read and be comfortable.

Warning: please excuse the playroom/craft room. A tornado decided to tear through our upstairs last week (actually one comes through at least once a week) and throw toys everywhere.

We had to work quite but fiercely since Boston's room was right around the corner and he was taking his nap at the time.

Remember when I posted about our trip to Home Depot? While we were there we picked up a package of this. Canvas drop cloth. Canvas that we used for the majority of our teepee. It was the perfect size since we wanted a good sized teepee.

Once the structure was up we wrapped the canvas around which was a little tricky since it was rectangle and not round. Circles and right angles don't mix. At all. #threwusforaloop

After some brain power on Jers part, we were able to get it wrapped and exactly how we wanted it. Except it had some gnarly excess cloth at the bottom. But nothing a pair of scissors couldn't fix. Trimmed up that baby and she looked like a whole new person bottom-of-teepee canvas.

While I was sewing my pillow cases Jer and Boston took a trip to Home Depot to get some grommets. You'll see soon how we used them (and I loooove it). It was even Jers idea. Two thumbs up, lover. Thaaaat's why I keep this guy around. :)

He used the directions on the package and looky there.....we have our first grommet.

Since we had excess fabric near where the "entrance" was I cut that away, too.

Nice and trimmed and primed for our stripes.

Once the main part was put together and stable....we started on the fabric/entrance part. We decided to use the fabric on the entrance instead of the top 1/4 of the canvas which was our first idea. I'm glad we did too because placing the stripes on the top of the teepee would have been more work.

After hemming the inside part I pinned the opposite side to the canvas marking with a black sharpie where I would sew them together. The black marks were there to show me exactly where my stitch line would need to be.

Once our canvas-connected-to-our-striped-fabric was sewn together and ready to be installed/wrapped/laid over we moved the poles to the workout room where the teepee would live since it would also be put up and out of sight until we were ready to present it to Mr. B.

We set it all up and took a long look at it.

Buuut......it looked a little too plain. So we jazzed it up with some Christmas lights (we thought little man would need some light while reading)....

.....and some grommets and leather cording.

Here she or he is. Here's what B gets to walk in and see tonight (Christmas Eve) after he opens up all of his other gifts downstairs by the Christmas tree.

I added some pillows and a comfy blanket for toddler tooshy. We want it nice and cozy for him. I must add that there's tons of room inside. Can't wait to have some reading/lunch/singing dates with my little guy.

Jer thought we should see how it looked with the lights off and only the Christmas lights on. It lit up the most of the room.

We love it and we hope that little man loves it too. Afterall, it did take us almost 6 hours to complete the whole shebang. If not, Jer and I plan on using it for cuddling date nights. Gives off some great ambiance. :)

The polka dot pillow case is one that I made last year for our living room.